Sid Bonkers said:
Please dont say "your friend Taubs" as I would genuinely hate for anyone to think that I agree with his theories
I know Sid, I'll have to try and dig out an irony avatar somewhre
Sid Bonkers said:
I can testify that reduced calorie diets do work, I have lost 4 stone and kept it off for 3 years, I did put on 9lbs over last Xmas when I ate more than I usually do, mainly stuff like cheese every night and more food generally - not just the Celebrations which some people seem to think is a central part of my diet :roll: but the least said about them the better - but a few weeks tightening things up saw the extra weight drop off, and for the record I dont feel hungry all the time.
That's great Sid. As you know, I'm an advocate of the "everyone is different" philosophy. I cite your diet as an example to new members all the time (in fact I did it today). I realise that cutting out processed carbs altogether is a big step for many of the newly diagnosed, and I think your approach is the only one that makes any sense of the message they are getting from the NHS.
Sid Bonkers said:
The truth is that most people living in the west eat far too much food period so any reduction in carbs and portion sizes is going to work, I genuinely dont know why you dont try it as by your own admission you are struggling to lose weight by LCHF.
Since when? When I was first diagnosed I dropped nearly 4 stone. I wasn't even really trying to lose weight, but I wanted to get my BG under control (<40g carbs/day HbA1c=5.4%).
The only reason I stopped (at the start of September) is that I've been running quite seriously since September, and that allowed me to eat a few more carbs than before. My weight has stayed more-or-less constant since then although judging by the grotesque sight of my calves, my muscle mass has increased significantly. It helped reduce my HbA1c to 5.2%.
I've only been back on the VLC (<<30g) for three weeks (on Tuesday), one of which was a rather difficult week in America, where I got a bit sick of steak. My weight has dropped about 5lbs, but I don't trust any weight loss at the start of a diet. My aim is twofold firstly to get a HbA1c of 4.9% or less, and secondly to lose weight to help my running.
I'm delighted with the way things are going. Apart from a huge liver dump after racing on Saturday morning, my BG hasn't been above 6mmol/l. (I mean
not ever not at 30mins, 60mins or 120mins after eating).
Why don't I try your diet? You'll appreciate that I can't easily go out and run 8 miles in a morning on 16g of corn-flakes. As I said above, our lives our very different, and what works for you probably won't work for me and vica-versa.
And I am not looking to try to convert your thinking on diets, I am pretty sure you will not be trying it anyway as you prefer to listen to Taubs etc and if his theory works for you then great but if it doesn't?
I'd be doing this if I'd never read Taubes (although reading his NY Times article was like a Road to Damascus moment for me). Bernstein was enough to convince me, but Taubes and Phinney and Ruhl, have all reinforced my opinion (and Stephen Guyenet has put a bit of a dent in it once or twice).
I'm also not trying to convince you or anyone else. If you look at my posts to newbies, you'll see that I always try to offer them a variety of paths to controlling their carbs. I don't think that
anyone needs to eat less tha 30g of carbs to control their diabetes (I certainly don't), but I think that there are significant benefits to be had,
if you can stick to what is essentially a very restrictive diet.
I think there is a significant difference between us. I'm prepared to accept that there are a variety of ways to control your diabetes and to lose weight. I think both of us agree that you need to somehow manage you carb intake to control your diabetes, aside from that I'm happy to listen to (and recommend) any diet, including yours, which allows diabetics to do exactly that. On the other hand, you seem to have this big axe to grind against anyone who advocates a Bernstein style low-carb diet. I don't understand why. It clearly works for some people, including me, and to suggest otherwise seems rather niggardly.